


on the red earth, your hand in mine

by slugmutt



Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Game of Thrones Fusion, Canon-Typical Violence, Cassian and Jyn are amazing and a little scary, but this time in the Game of Thrones universe, not sure how to categorize this honestly
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-28
Updated: 2017-08-28
Packaged: 2018-12-20 22:32:27
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,990
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11930661
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/slugmutt/pseuds/slugmutt
Summary: When a man first sees her, he is wiping a Westerosi lord’s blood off his dagger.





	on the red earth, your hand in mine

When a man first sees her, he is wiping a Westerosi lord’s blood off his dagger.

A man has not been startled in many years. To give the gift, one must be alert, always. Especially when traveling so far from home.

And the one who sneaks past his defenses is a girl. Ten years old at most, all skinny limbs and bright green eyes. Cautious, but not afraid.

That is what changes everything, in the end. A man knows many ways to quiet a frightened child. But the girl is silent, face calm as she watches the lord’s blood drip onto the castle floor, and a man waits to see what she will do.

What she does is to curl her lip into a sneer, and say, “ _I_ was going to kill him, stupid-head.”

A man smiles at her. “Then a man has saved you the trouble,” he says.

A girl scowls. “I _wanted_ to kill him,” she says, but her voice is uncertain. A man understands. Few truly desire to give the gift, no matter what their anger tells them.

She walks toward him, carefully avoiding the growing puddle of blood, and crouches next to the body. “Did you cut his throat from the _inside_?” she asks, fascinated. She looks up, eager. “Will you show me how?”

A girl is not what a man expected a Westerosi child to be. A girl is not like what a man expected any child to be.

“A girl should go to bed,” he warns her. “A girl is not safe here.”

She snorts in derision. “A girl is not safe anywhere,” she informs him.

A girl is smart.

A man turns to leave. He must not be caught in this place. There is much to do, and he has no time to escape a Westerosi prison.

“Wait!” a girl calls. A man should ignore her.

A man turns, instead.

“How did you do it?” she demands. “How did you get in here, how did you… Who are you?”

“A servant,” a man tells her. “And now the servant must be going back to his master’s house.”

“What’s your name?” the girls asks, desperate. “At least tell me your name.”

“Joreth,” he says. And it’s true, in a way. Joreth has been working in the kitchens for weeks, waiting for this opportunity.

Joreth will die, now, and a man will sail across the sea. But a girl does not need to know that.

A girl glares at him. “Liar,” she says.

And then the faint sound of approaching footsteps echoes from the hallway, and they both run.

*

The second time, she nearly slits his throat.

The riot starts in seconds. One stray blow, one sword unsheathed was all it took. A man was expecting this. Anyone could see the city was on the brink of chaos.

A man unsheathes his knives. _King’s Landing_ , he thinks, the words a curse, and then he’s moving.

He doesn’t like this. The gift should be given silently, carefully. Not in the pandemonium of a mob, without even knowing who is being graced with its release. Not by _accident._

But a man has a job to do, so he must live, so he must fight. And he’s doing well, almost makes it to safety, when suddenly there’s a dagger at his throat, just a breath from ending it all.

And then a man hears a woman say, “Sorry, wasn’t aiming for you,” and the dagger is withdrawn. A hand pulls him, and since it’s pulling him away from the mob, he follows.

The hand belongs to a young woman. She’s dressed in men’s clothing, and dirty, and he supposes most people might believe her to be the young – male – urchin she seems intent on passing herself as.

He is not most people

She shoves him into the corner between a ramshackle tavern and a hut that looks as if one strong wind would blow it to pieces, and looks him over, then nods as if she’s reached a decision.

“Look. I need to get out of here before the gold cloaks catch me,” she says. “And you look decent enough. Well, compared to everyone else here.”

“Thanks,” he says, drily, and she glares.

“I need to get out of here, and so do you,” she snaps. “You’re a good fighter. I’m a good fighter. We stick together, we both live. You in?”

A man nods.

 

A man is unused to fighting with a partner. It is incomparably easier; his arms free to slash and parry with her back to his.

Once, he turns halfway to block a strike from the left, and sees her fighting behind him. It is a thing of beauty. She has the elegance of a water dancer, the courage of a drunk knight in a melee, and the pure savage energy of… well. A man has seen nothing like it.

“A woman fights well,” he tells her, later. They had stayed together by silent consensus after fighting their way free, evading the gold cloaks as they wove their way toward the city wells.

“Do I know you?” she asks, in response, and suddenly a man remembers where he has seen her.

He should have recognized her face earlier. But then, it has been several years, and she has changed, her skinny child’s body filling out into a woman’s form. Her eyes are the same, though, green and bright, full of fire and challenge.

He remembers her, but he just shrugs. “I have a common face,” he says.

They part ways, and that is that.

 

At least, it is until that night.

A man walks calmly through the streets. Curfew began hours ago, but the gold cloaks will not harass him here, not in the richest part of the city.

 The mansion behind him is dark and silent. Lord Mutdah’s body has not been discovered. When it is, there will be a clamor, as the guards come running. And then a bigger clamor, as thousands of nephews and grandsons and fourth cousins try to claim a share in the fortune.

A man does not worry himself with such things. A man has a boat waiting in the harbor to take him across the sea, to a place that does not reek of nightsoil and pending disaster. A man has other places to be.

A man has a knife flying toward his face.

He catches it in time. The blade is elegant; he’ll probably be dealing with a slightly smarter brand of thief tonight.

He drops into a crouch, and decides who to kill first. But before he can return the knife to its owner, a voice calls, “Wait!”

The face that goes with the voice is familiar. “You seem to have a knack for getting into trouble,” she says as she approaches.

“You seem to have a knack for causing trouble,” he replies.

She grins, as if it’s the best compliment he could have given her. “I do at that.”

A second shape emerges from the shadows, a tall man in black who prefers daggers to swords and favors his left leg. “What do you want to do with him, Tanith?” he asks.

“I’m not sure we get to decide, with this one,” she says, as if the confession pains her. “But… “ her eyes scan a man from head to toe, considering. Her eyes meet his as she asks, “Have you heard of Saw the Thrice-Risen?”

 

A man could hardly resist the opportunity to meet the most famed bandit in Westeros. He will meet this Saw before he returns to his master’s house, take his measure, count his followers. These things are good to know.

 

Saw the Thrice-Risen is heavily scarred, but strong, and fast on his feet. He is wary of poison, and deadly with a longsword in hand.

His eyes are haunted by something more than human grief or weariness.

“Has he truly risen from the dead?” a man asks.

A woman nods, slowly. She does not like to share information, he has learned; she remains close-mouthed even now, long after her companions stopped seeing a man as a stranger and started sharing their stories.

A woman is wise.

“I saw it once myself,” she tells him, her voice barely more than a whisper. “He was hit by ten arrows, and one… It went right through his heart, I saw it. But that one, Obi-Wan – he knelt over Saw and said something, and Saw _rose_.”

A man cannot help frowning. “A life was owed,” he murmurs. “The god of many faces will not be denied.”

She hears him. “Obi-Wan doesn’t care about your god of many faces,” she says, not unkindly. “He only cares about the Light and the Dark. As for me,” she shrugs. “If a god can bring back my… can bring back Saw, I have no complaints.”

“When he rose, did he rise as before?”

She looks at him, and even in the darkness of the caves, a man can see that her gaze is sharp. “No,” she says, and a man hears a world of bitterness and pain in that word. “No, he didn’t.”

 

A man stays for some time with Saw and his company. There is much to learn. Saw plans attacks constantly, according to some master plan that only he can see. A man travels the Riverlands, sees knights and smallfolk and bandits and high lords, tracks troop movements and destroyed townships.

These things are good to know.

A woman leaves him the first day, saying she is too busy to deal with recruits.

She comes to find him in the middle of the night, rousing him with a kick and a curt, “Come on, then.” They dance in the darkness of the caves, that night and every night after, blades clashing and spinning until one or both are too tired to continue.

A woman has learned the water dance of Braavos. A woman practices every day, but not for Saw’s raids, no. A woman has her own dark goals, a list of sacrifices for the many-faced god.

A woman is quick to throw herself into danger, and will stop at nothing to defend the innocent. He has seen her throw herself in front of an arrow to save a strange child; has seen her give her last crust of bread to a younger fighter. But if she is accused of kindness, a woman will scowl and make a point of sharpening her knives within earshot.

These things are good to know.

One day they attack a convoy of Lord Vader’s men as they march toward the Twins. They have surprise on their side, and speed, but Vader’s men are well trained, his archers firing off volley after volley of arrows even as the Partisans descend on them. The arrows kill a young man who joined up just last month, a former cowherd who found the Partisans after his cows were slain and burned.

The arrows almost kill a woman, too, but someone pushes her out of the way at the last minute, shields her body with his own as the arrows fly by overhead.

“Thank you,” she manages to breathe, and a man nods in response, but what he is thinking is, _a life is owed_.

He pays the life debt immediately, sending six of Vader’s men to meet the many-faced god in a woman’s place. It doesn’t help his feeling of unease.

A woman finds him that night. “Don’t tell me you’re too tired to fight, that raid was nothing,” she begins, smirking. And then something in his eyes gives him away, because her eyes go flat, and she steps away. “You’re leaving.”

“There is work to be done,” a man says. It is not a lie, not truly.

For a moment, emotion flits across her face, there and gone so fast even he couldn’t give it a name. “You’re one of them, aren’t you?” she asks.

“One of who?” he asks, voice curious. Innocent.

She steps toward him, and he keeps his face still as she reaches out a hand. Her fingers trace the line of his face carefully, and he focuses on breathing steadily, on the beat of his heart. A man is very aware of a woman’s hand as she continues her search.

“No seams,” she mutters after a minute. Her hand falls, but lands on his chest.

A man exhales slowly. “No seams,” he repeats. Her hand is warm against his shirt.

“But it’s you. You changed your voice, you changed your _face_ , but you… You were Joreth,” she says, and he hears the pride in her voice, the triumph.

It is triumph well earned. He knew a woman was observant, but he didn’t know the half of it _._ A man must review his words carefully, must think of what other knowledge could have slipped out.

A woman is amazing.

She’s looking at him as if she expects him to speak.

“A man was once Joreth,” he admits, and her face lights up in triumph. “And a woman was Lady Jyn Erso.”

Emotions flit across her face again, and this time he recognizes them; surprise, anger, fear. She steps back, her eyes never leaving his face.

“Safe journeys, Joreth,” she says after a minute, her voice flat.

A man leaves that place. A man travels by foot, by horse, by boat, every step taking him farther away from the Partisans, from dank walls and angry green eyes and surprisingly gentle hands.

Still, the unease lingers, unease and a darker feeling. Something that sinks into his mind and poisons his memories of the last months; makes them hurt.

*

The third time, he goes looking for her.

It takes longer than he had expected. For someone who seems to leave a path of blood and destruction wherever she goes, a woman is remarkably difficult to find.

A man travels the Riverlands north and south, only to discover that she no longer rides with Saw the Thrice-Risen (Saw has risen at least six times, now; a man shudders at the thought).

The few innkeepers brave enough to keep their doors open have no information to share; nor do the begging brothers, or the urchins hiding in half-broken castles. Either Jyn Erso is practically invisible, or the people love her enough to keep her secret. Having met her, he knows it could be either.

She may not be in the Riverlands, he knows. A woman is smart, and resourceful. She may have fled to Oldtown by now, or Dorne. She may be across the Narrow Sea. But a man begins at the start of the trail, as he always does.

In the end, she finds him. Or, rather, Lord Tarkin’s sellswords find them both.

“You there, in the red shirt, you alive?” he hears, and through his swollen eyelids he sees black hair and shining green eyes, and,

“Why are you smiling?” she asks, suspicious. “Are you stupid? You have noticed our situation, I hope.”

A man swallows. “Not stupid. Just glad to see a friendly face.”

She snorts. “I’m nobody’s friend. If you’re looking for a partner in escape, though…”

It takes them exactly seven minutes to incapacitate the guards and ride off on stolen horses. “Do I know you?” a woman asks. A man shakes his head, and wonders how long it will take her to catch him in this lie.

 

(One day later, she’s grinning in triumph as he holds her knife, caught in mid-air just before it reached his face. “I knew it was you,” she says.

“And if it hadn’t been?”

She shrugs. “It was.”)

 

Knowing that he is actually a master assassin, not a farmer, seems to put her mind at ease. She agrees to join him, helps him find Saw’s old maps. They make their way through the Riverlands and up to the Vale, traveling faster than he could have hoped, aided by rumors shared by men and women they meet along the way, smallfolk who have somehow managed to stay alive. She has a gift for finding people who’ve seen more than they should.

They take turns with the cooking, until he takes over (a man cannot live on burnt squirrel alone).

They don’t bother to take turns standing guard. There aren’t many things in the woods worse than them.

The story of her last three years comes out in bits and pieces; Saw’s rebirths, his betrayal, her lone raids on Tarkin’s men. In return, he shares what scraps of truth he can – the sight of the sun rising over the great harbor, the elephants of Volantis, the rumors of dragons. She tries to shock him with the bawdy jokes she heard from Saw’s men; he finally retaliates with the one Meros told a boy who sold clams in Ragman’s Harbor, and she actually blushes. He teaches her to hit the center of a bullseye with a knife from forty paces; she helps him practice swordplay.

A man wonders, sometimes, if this is how other men feel; men with homes and families and names.

He wonders when she’ll realize he’s here to kill her father.

For all that Jyn is clever, for all that she always sees through his disguise, she doesn’t suspect until Longbow Hall is in ruins and her father’s body lies on a courtyard floor, quickly cooling to match the hard stone underneath. (A man did not strike the killing blow, in the end. It doesn’t matter.)

Perhaps she did not want to know. A man does not want to think this, but the thought refuses to go.

“You’re just like them,” she yells, and the fire in her eyes burns him. “You’re just like everyone else, like all the stupid fucking sheep who maim and kill and destroy our land for _nothing_. Just because some high lord told them to, or some idiot who wants to be king, or some fucking priest.”

“A man had no choice,” he tells her. “There was no other way. A woman understands this. A woman has taken many lives, herself.”

The anger in his voice is not his. He is nobody, and nobody has no feelings.

“You always have a choice,” she yells. “Don’t give me this… You’re a person! I don’t care what they did to you, what shit they filled your head with, but you’re still a person. You have a brain, you can choose!”

“The god of many faces wants who he wants.”

She looks disgusted. “Oh, are you serving the gods?” she says. “Right. The crown is corrupt, the Faith of the Seven is corrupt, and the high lords are children bickering over ashes. But the House of Black and White is pure as the driven snow, is that it? Your priests take a king’s ransom for each killing, but it’s all the will of the gods.”

A man frowns. “How did you – “

“I know all about your temple,” she says, circling him as if preparing for a fight. “I know all about the lies you tell yourself. You say death is a gift. If you believed that, if you – if it was a gift you’d take it for yourself, wouldn’t you?” She studies him for a moment, fury in every line of her expression. “Is that what you want?” she demands.

Her knife is at his throat. The movement was sudden, almost so fast that he couldn’t have stopped it. He stands, motionless.

He does not know what to say, to stop her.

He does not know if he wants to stop her.

She looks at him for a long moment. There are tears in her eyes, and a man notices how cold this place is, and how desolate.

“A man has been in the House of Black and White since he was six years old,” he finally says. He does not offer the words as an excuse, or even an explanation. He offers them because… Because a woman should know. She should know that it was not her fault.

She should know that nothing she could have said or done would have changed this moment.

The knife presses deeper, a man’s death just a twitch of the wrist away. There is a prayer he should say, he knows. He is silent. A man has given the god of many faces so very much. He will take this last moment for himself – the cold wind on his face, the smell of pine trees and blood in the air, and Jyn’s green eyes staring into his as if they can read his very soul.

And then the knife is withdrawn.

“Go,” she commands him, and when he hesitates, “Go! I don’t want you here. I have to,” her voice breaks. “I have to bury my father.”

There is no lie in her voice. _I don’t want you here_ , she said, and she meant it.

A man goes. He has caused this pain, but he cannot fix it. He can only watch from afar as she buries the body herself; as she kneels, weeping, over the freshly dug grave.

This thing is done, and cannot be changed. A man knows this.

A man understands, finally, why so many drink of the waters of the House of Black and White.

*

The fourth time, she saves him.

 

A man races up the palace steps three at a time. A man knew that this was an urgent matter, but from the faint sounds echoing above him, it seems that despite all his haste he may be too late.

He arrives just as the sword is about to pierce Jyn Erso’s chest.

The smile slips off Lord Krennic’s face as a man’s knife flies across the room and pierces his knee from behind. He falls, fingers scrambling to stench the bleeding, his sword forgotten.

Krennic is easily distracted, a man thinks. And then his eyes find Jyn’s, and he forgets Krennic completely.

She is bloody and battered and glorious. She is clearly tired, and injured, but she’s smiling, a wild, savage smile that promises death. It is beautiful.

A man’s chest feels different, as he looks at her.

Krennic groans, and the moment is broken. “Your kill,” Jyn says, reluctant. “He would have had me if it weren’t for you.”

A man shakes his head. “A woman has longed for this one’s death for many years. The kill is yours.”

She smiles again. Krennic’s end comes quickly.

She takes her time afterward, cleaning her daggers methodically, as if she has all the time in the world. And all the time staring at a man’s face. She looks at him with a mix of disbelief and – a man can’t help noticing – delight.

“How are you here?” she asks. “Did your priests finally decide to go after the people who really need to be killed, for a change?”

“His name was not mentioned,” a man admits. “But a man decided to bring him the gift anyway.”

She studies his face for a minute and then smiles, and this time her smile is almost a laugh. As if they share a private joke.

“Well, come on then,” she says lightly. “We have a lot more gifts to deliver.” She pauses, “Are you with me?”

A man has given one life unasked-for. A man should return, now, should sail back and atone for his sin.

A woman watches him, her eyes never leaving his face, and what he sees burning there is hope.

“All the way,” he tells her, and her answering smile is blinding.

 

When the troops arrive an hour later there is nothing left to do but to bury the dead.

In later years they invent a story; a rogue guard, an assassin sent by the King of the Iron Isles. Or perhaps the King in the North. The story changes as politics demand.

But those in the castle that day walk the bloodstained halls, and see the faces of the dead, and no explanation ever gives them peace.

 

Jyn stops after two hours, Harrenhal still visible in the distance. A man watches as she wades into a river and washes the blood from her clothes.

“A woman does not travel far,” a man says. She nods, her skin glistening.

Jyn is beautiful.

“They’ll send riders fast and far,” she says. “And they won’t look here. You’d have to be an idiot to stay this close to the castle.”

A man smiles. “You would make a talented assassin,” he says.

She looks at him, and raises an eyebrow. “As I recall, I already am a talented assassin.”

A man nods. It is true. If she had been in the House of Black and White, she would have outshone them all.

If she could have become nobody. Somehow, a man doubts she could have. A man knows, now, that this is not a weakness.

“What about you?”

He looks, a question in his eyes.

“You could stay here, you know,” she says. She does not meet his eyes. “We could – there’s plenty to do here, in Westeros.”

Jyn wants him to stay. For a moment, he is warm despite the chill fall breeze.

But a man’s fate lies elsewhere.

“A man would not fit in, in Westeros,” he tells her, half-apologizing.

“You have the clothes. You have the accent, when you want to,” she replies, her tone deliberately light. “You just need a name.”

He smiles. “And what name would suit me?”

“Twenty years ago, a boy named Cassian Andor went missing in Braavos,” she says, and his heart almost stops.

“His mother and his sisters had been murdered just weeks earlier,” she continues, ignoring the way he sits frozen on the riverbank. “Murdered by a rich man and his brother, men so powerful that nobody dared to challenge them.

“But Cassian’s father was determined to have justice. Cassian went missing, and two days later, the murderers were dead, in a freak accident.

“Some say it was a coincidence. But some say the Many-Faced God took the child, and accepted the man’s prayer,” she concludes.

She lifts her head to meet his eyes. There is a long moment of silence.

“Anyway,” she finally says, “I was just thinking that if you were looking for a name, Cassian’s a pretty nice one.”

Somehow, he finds his voice. “You’re amazing,” he tells her.

She laughs, delighted. “Is that a ‘yes’ on Cassian?”

A man thinks about it for a long moment. The name she has chosen is dangerous. And yet…

“You may call me by this name,” he decides.

He has never seen her smile so much. “So you’ll stay?”              

 _I want to stay_ , he thinks. His heart thunders in his ears. These are dangerous thoughts. A man has taken a name, a man has wants. A man is no longer no one.

This thing cannot be.

“A man’s fate lies elsewhere,” he tells her, and her smile fades.

“You can’t want to go back to Braavos,” she says. She looks at him, mouth set in a stubborn line, eyes daring him to disagree.

“Not back to Braavos,” he agrees.

“Cassian,” she says, and the sound of his name in her mouth is something new, something bright, something dangerous. “Where are you planning to go?”

He looks away from her, toward the horizon. There are lies he could tell now, kind lies that would let her picture him living a happy life, somewhere far from the war.

But he and Jyn are past the point of lies.

“A man has sinned against the God of Many Faces,” he tells her. “There must be payment.”

“You’re planning to kill yourself,” she says, voice flat. Unsurprised.

“A man must – “

She cuts him off. “I thought we were past this horse shit. Honestly, Cassian…” She sighs. “Do you really think this is the will of the gods?”

This is not an easy question. The truth… the truth is…

“A man has done terrible things,” he says, his voice barely louder than the murmur of the river.

“A man isn’t alone in that,” she says, and when he looks up she’s looking straight at him. Her expression is softer, now, almost sympathetic. “In a world with men like Lord Vader and King Palpatine in it, you really think it’s _you_ the gods want dead?”

“I don’t know,” he tells her. They are past the point of lies.

She kneels before him, moving slowly, as if he’s a wild animal, easily startled. Her fingers rise and trace the side of his face, warm against his skin, and he remembers a dark cave, years ago.

“No seams,” she says with a small smile.

“No face,” he tells her.

Her fingers still. “This is you?”

He nods, his eyes never leaving hers.

“I like it,” she says, with a small smile, and there is only truth in her voice.

He can’t help smiling back.

“Come with me,” she says. Pleads. “Don’t throw your life away, _use_ it. Do good. You and me together, we’d be unstoppable.” She pauses, but a man is silent. “We could offer your God of Many Faces a lot of sacrifices,” she adds. “Lord Tarkin, for a start.”

“That won’t be easy,” he warns.

“It’d be easier with you,” she replies.

A man is silent. The forest is quiet, peaceful. Inside, a man’s whole world has shifted, has been pulled out and shaken apart and then shoved hastily back into place. And now the woman who did it is watching him, waiting, as he tries to make sense of the pieces that remain.

Jyn. Death. Duty. Gods, blood, priests, faces, Jyn, no one (you have to be no one all of the time, even on the inside, being someone _hurts_ ), Braavos, pain, sacrifice.

Jyn.

“If the God of Many Faces wants me, he can come get me,” Cassian decides.

Jyn smiles, bigger and brighter than anything he’s seen, as she takes his hand. “Let’s go, then.”

 

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> For those not familiar with Game of Thrones: http://gameofthrones.wikia.com/wiki/Faceless_Men


End file.
